Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VI

[ks.234]

I have never argued otherwise. I even tried to add a time-domain to your statements to articulate this. As stated above we seem to be arguing about semantics, we are actually on the same page. To my mind whether taxation is current or (as it is) delayed on a timeline it is obvious it funds public spending. Yes, that money is taken from us after the fact, but that is still its purpose.

PS One could almost use the same argument for pensions etc, e.g. one often hear people saying they have paid in for decades to their pension scheme. Actually they haven’t, the money they paid pays for existing pensioners at that time, they are paying in on the *promise* there will be sufficient resources available to cover theirs when their time comes. There is smoke and mirrors in all this stuff!

No, tax does not fund spending. It balances the books. It does not buy public services, it makes the numbers add up after spending on public services has happened. Tax does not provide the purchasing power for anything. The purchase happens when government issues that money. Government does not need paying back in order to spend again, it can just create more money.

You’ve quoted Keynes several times, but wasn’t it he who said something like, ‘We can afford this and much more. Anything we can actually do, we can afford”

In there are two things, that our government can buy whatever it wants, but within the limits of available skills and resources

Do accept that government is the only issuer of money?

 

[Tony L]

Do accept that government is the only issuer of money?

Theoretically. Though as ever it is rather more complex, e.g. the Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve! The Bank Of England is interesting too only fully being an organ of the state when Attlee nationalised it (Blair/Brown reversed that). Both have a degree of independence. I understand where you are going though and I really can’t be bothered arguing. We are close enough.

PS You can also argue any and every fractional reserve bank or building society ‘creates’ money every time they lend out money to a new borrower. They create it on the system as debt and use it to generate interest.

 

[ks.234]

Theoretically. Though as ever it is rather more complex, e.g. the Federal Reserve is neither federal nor a reserve! The Bank Of England is interesting too only fully being an organ of the state when Attlee nationalised it (Blair/Brown reversed that). Both have a degree of independence. I understand where you are going though and I really can’t be bothered arguing. We are close enough.

Theoretically!?! Who do you think is responsible for money creation if it isn’t government? Any money in circulation that isn’t issued by government is counterfeit! The central banks might be the “mint” for want of a better word, but government controls the “mint”. Central Banks only issue money under instruction from government. The only independence the BoE has is to set interest rates.

 

[ks.234]

Let’s take a real life example.

Many will soon be paying for a NI rise, a tax rise, to pay for Covid.

But government has already spent the money on Covid, why does it need paying back?

If government can, as Keynes says, issue as much money as is needed why does it not create the money to pay itself back? Even if government did not just issue the money to pay itself back, why does it not just sell more bonds?

Does government need to be paid back, or does it choose to demand that it is paid back?

 

[Brian]

Getting away from the accusations of people making stuff up, countered by claims someone is not making themselves clear, there are two points I would make.

There is not a single person posting on this forum who properly understands this stuff to an expert level. Nobody.

I reckon most here agree the tory line that compares running the national economy with running a household budget is bollocks, though obviously the bottom line in the latest exchanges is that govt spending money before getting the money back in tax they know they will get later is the same as a bridging loan when moving house... It’s obvious, innit?

What does any of this have to do with Starmer?

 

[Brian]

I see it as the right wing controlling the media, not just the Tory’s, as evidenced by its complicity with the right wing of the Labour Party in ending any hope of a Corbyn government via non stop regurgitation of lies and smears, emanating from the Labour right.

Fair comment.

 

[ks.234]

An indication of how Starmer intends to “improve” the NHS?

 

[Brian]

I guess evidence will determine if it is or not.

 

[farfromthesun]

Does it really matter if Starmer is “x” points ahead if there isn’t any hope of a GE being called?

 

[Brian]

Does it really matter if Starmer is “x” points ahead if there isn’t any hope of a GE being called?

Not really, it only matters (a lot) if Starmer is “x” points behind.

 

[ks.234]

Does it really matter if Starmer is “x” points ahead if there isn’t any hope of a GE being called?

And the Tories have ditched Johnson and/or party gate has been forgotten.

 

[Tony L]

The whole thing only emphasises just how structurally broken the whole system is as once again history is repeating. Once again after a lengthy multi-term period of Tory rule their familiar corruption and criminality is exposed and it even looks likely Labour, their frail incoherent Stockholm Syndrome captive, may be allowed out in the sunlight for a short time whilst the Tory elites regroup and calculate their next trough-siphoning mission. This is not a democracy and Labour is not an ‘opposition’. They are merely a deflection tactic to maintain the status quo. The all too familiar pattern will simply repeat endlessly until we absolutely demand real electoral reform and political representation.

 

[ks.234]

The whole thing only emphasises just how structurally broken the whole thing is as once again history is repeating. Once again after a lengthy multi-term period of Tory rule their familiar corruption and criminality is exposed and it even looks likely Labour, their frail incoherent Stockholm Syndrome captive, may be allowed out in the sunlight for a short time whilst the Tory elites regroup and calculate their next trough-siphoning mission. This is not a democracy and Labour is not an ‘opposition’. They are merely a deflection tactic to maintain the status quo. The all too familiar pattern will simply repeat endlessly until we absolutely demand real electoral reform and political representation.

Agree with all of that, but at the heart of the status quo is a Tory Monetarism that, leaving the tax myth to one side just for a moment, also oversees a myth that making millions of people unemployed is both necessary and natural, and only controls inflation with just one tool, interest rates, that by and large benefits rich lenders at the expense of poor borrowers.

It is a philosophy that makes a policy of rewarding the rich, and punishing the poor.

Agree with everything you say about PR and proper representation, but the immorality of the Tory party of the last half century, and one that has infected our whole political system like a virus, is based on a Tory Monetarist ideology that is dishonest, cruel and regressive. If we want real political change the entire philosophical basis of the current Tory Party needs to be overturned.

 

[Tony L]

First create a functioning representative democracy. Next pitch valid ideas and concepts for people to vote for. You can’t ever get to point two whilst point one doesn’t exist.

 

[ks.234]

First create a functioning representative democracy. Next pitch valid ideas and concepts for people to vote for. You can’t ever get to point two whilst point one doesn’t exist.

We can’t have a functioning representative democracy while we have an immoral philosophy at it’s head. And changes to the voting structure will only enable the voters to choose between different levels of immorality or different parties infected more or less by the same immorality.

I agree that PR is important, but so is the immorality at the heart of our current political ideology that infects all parties. Arguing for one and not the other will not produce the changes, environmental as well as social and political, that our society so urgently needs

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

The problem is that the Monetarist ideology is so ingrained, many voters will apply the ‘stands to reason, dunnit’ test if anybody claims otherwise. Getting traction for a new paradigm could take a decade or more, and I don’t think we have that time left.

 

[ks.234]

The problem is that the Monetarist ideology is so ingrained, many voters will apply the ‘stands to reason, dunnit’ test if anybody claims otherwise. Getting traction for a new paradigm could take a decade or more, and I don’t think we have that time left.

This is unfortunately very true. The ‘household model’ of government spending, as much derided as it is, is still, as you say, ingrained.

We all understand that we need an income before we can spend, so assume that government does too. But government issues currency, so it does not need an income in order to spend. Government has the printing press, or computer as it is today, which it can turn on or off at will.

I live in hope that it will not take decades, I hope that as more people realise the logic that falsifies the household model, a tipping point will be reached, that could, could, turn things around.

 

[Tony L]

We can’t have a functioning representative democracy while we have an immoral philosophy at it’s head. And changes to the voting structure will only enable the voters to choose between different levels of immorality or different parties infected more or less by the same immorality.

I agree that PR is important, but so is the immorality at the heart of our current political ideology that infects all parties. Arguing for one and not the other will not produce the changes, environmental as well as social and political, that our society so urgently needs

I am fundamentally anti-authoritarian and believe in true democracy. As such I see no alternative but changing the system to one that actually represents votes and attempting to win political and economic arguments from there. The only alternatives to democracy are violent revolution and dictatorship. I would hate to live through any change forced without real democracy and accountability as it never, ever works.

Regardless we are where we are. Neither head of the Westminster beast will act in our interests. Both exist to maintain the existing establishment. The only possible way forward IMO are for the other more democratic progressive voices in parliament to hold Labour’s feet to the fire and force them towards electoral reform. I just don’t see any other mechanism for change on the horizon.

 

[droodzilla]

This is unfortunately very true. The ‘household model’ of government spending, as much derided as it is, is still, as you say, ingrained.

We all understand that we need an income before we can spend, so assume that government does too. But government issues currency, so it does not need an income in order to spend. Government has the printing press, or computer as it is today, which it can turn on or off at will.

I live in hope that it will not take decades, I hope that as more people realise the logic that falsifies the household model, a tipping point will be reached, that could, could, turn things around.

I think media reform is more fundamental. That, plus a revitalised school syllabus with significant resources devoted to critical thinking and digital literacy.

Democracy is impossible if the electorate is fed a daily diet of hatred and lies and is generally ill-equipped to sift fact from fiction. For example, get some journalists on the BBC who are economically literate and able to explain how a national economy really works.

The rest would flow from there + PR. Or at least it might.

 

[droodzilla]

I think media reform is more fundamental. That, plus a revitalised school syllabus with significant resources devoted to critical thinking and digital literacy.

Democracy is impossible if the electorate is fed a daily diet of hatred and lies and is generally ill-equipped to sift fact from fiction. For example, get journalists on the BBC who are economically literate and able to explain how a national economy really works.

The rest would flow from there + PR. Or at least it might.

Also: stop the revolving door between politics, the media and big business. Complete electoral reform - not just PR but a serious effort to widen participation and reform political party funding + many other measures, I expect, all of which will be fiercely resisted by anyone who benefits from the status quo.

There's a hell of a lot to do but that's what happens when democracy is left to rot over several decades.